THE FORGOTTEN
The NZSAS were trained to be ghosts, and like ghosts they were treated. No bravery award was ever received by the members of ‘Faceless 26 Ghost Unit’, and medal appeals to the Australians they served under fell on deaf ears. Matt Shand
THE snap of a stick underfoot halted the six-man NZSAS patrol quicker than the gunshots that would soon follow. Outside the relative safety of friendly artillery, and edging along a North Vietnamese Army trail, lead scout Bill Taare gave a signal to take firing positions, wait and hope.
The members of NZ’s Faceless 26 Ghost Unit, a name given to men whose identities were kept secret during the war, were landed by helicopter on January 13, 1970 northeast of Nui Dat, an Australian taskforce base where the Battle of Long Tan raged. No sooner had they stepped off the helicopter than the distinctive sound of signal fire caught Taare’s ears. The enemy had learned helicopters meant the SAS would be around. As lead scout, Taare’s job was to scour in front of the patrol, watching for traps.
Crouching behind were Sergeant Graham Campbell, 2IC Syd Puia, signaller Greg ‘‘Blue’’ Sutherland, medic Tama ‘‘Sam’’ Maaka and trooper Warwick ‘‘Mac’’ McCallion.
The patrol’s mission was to investigate a track and disrupt operations. During the night he heard voices emanate from the nearby trail.
The snapping of the twig was followed by 60 sickly seconds of silence waited out in jungle humidity. Taare instinctively noted a stump nearby for cover and gave the signal to move forward.
Campbell took a step forward. Then another. The next was cut short by shots from Russian-made AK47 rifles.
‘‘All hell broke loose,’’ Taare recalls. ‘‘I’ve been behind a machine gun, and it is frightening enough, but standing right there in front of it is much, much worse.’’
Black-clad figures appeared from behind anthills and stumps. There were at least 10, some just 10 metres away. The dirt in front of Taare peppered up as short rounds landed.
‘‘I just hit the deck,’’ he says. ‘‘I got as low as I could and crawled to the stump on my right.’’
Campbell was not as quick. An AK47 round hit between the eyes and he crumpled over. He was the only NZSAS soldier killed in action during the Vietnam War.
Taare, unaware his sergeant had failed to find cover, opened fire. As he heard more fire assist from behind he turned to see Campbell on the ground.
Knowing he and his men were in trouble, Taare reached for a white phosphorous grenade. He hurled it and ducked for cover.
‘‘Move up,’’ Taare yelled over the chaos. His patrol responded.
Puia ran to the body, removed the URC10 radio from Campbell’s chest and rifled through his left pocket to retrieve the code book.
‘‘To do that, I had to climb on top of Graham. I was face to face with him. He was on his back with his head to one side. He had a little mark above his nose. The odd thing was there was not much blood. I didn’t get any on me removing the radio. But I knew he was dead before he hit the ground.’’ Closing Campbell’s eyes, Puia rejoined the firefight. The smokescreen dissipating, Taare knew they needed to withdraw. Turning, he saw his teenage squad mate McCallion hoisting Campbell onto his already loaded pack. The men had a motto: ‘‘One in all in. One out all out.’’ Campbell would not be left behind. McCallion was rattled, but steeled by his elite training. He had just turned 19 and had lied about his age to join the unit. ‘‘You had to be 19 to enter and let’s say I was a long way off 19. I completed the training at 17 with about 100 different guys and funnily enough, I was one of just three that made it through,’’ he recalls. Taare made a radio alert to inform aircraft of their position, and at the Australian forward base in Nui Dat, pilots scrambled into a Huey gunship and rescue helicopters sitting at ‘‘Kanga Pad 01’’. McCallion was double-timing through the dense forest, but his extra cargo was causing him to lag behind his squad. The men ran through the jungle searching for clear ground, hoping for the sound of helicopters before the ammunition ran out. Finally, after two hours of running and fighting and running and now holding a line, five Huey ‘‘angels’’ crested the horizon. Bill climbed out of cover to use a marker panel, essentially a large reflector, to signal the pilot. This meant standing, exposed to enemy fire. ‘‘Get your heads down, get your heads down, get your heads down. Rockets coming in . . . Now,’’ buzzed the radio. The ferocious onslaught of high explosive buckled the jungle in front of Taare.
‘‘The sound was amazing. Like hail on a tin roof.’’ Rockets landed wide and Taare called it in even closer. He had to signal out of cover again and avoid the incoming rocket barrage to do so.
Pilot Peter Bradford was signalled to drop a ‘‘jungle penetrator’’ extraction device for the squad. The device resembles a ship’s anchor and it is used to pierce dense forest canopy. Once it hits the ground it unfolds, allowing two men to hook on and be winched to safety.
‘‘I went first, carrying Graham on my back,’’ Taare says. ‘‘It was so hard to get him on the platform, but I ... hung on for dear life.’’
Sitting on the helicopter landing pad, Bradford heard about the pact to get Campbell’s body out.
‘‘That stuck with me even to this day,’’ Bradford says. ‘‘They were heroes. Every time I flew into New Zealand as a Qantas pilot after the war, I tried to make contact with them, but didn’t know where to find them.’’
A doctor later told Taare there was nothing they could have done to save Campbell. With a pocket still full of Campbell’s teeth – the result of an attempt to clear his airway – Taare’s thoughts turned to his widow, Ellen.
‘‘I remembered having a few drinks before we left home and she was there. She told me, told us, to bring him back alive. I remember in my drunken state, I just sang a little song and laughed at her. I felt embarrassed. I felt like I had failed. I had failed Graham and failed her.’’
A few days later, Taare was walking past the operation centre at Nui Dat. He had lost Campbell’s teeth when he dumped his clothes for replacement. His traditional value around tapu and sacred death rites were just not present with him in Vietnam. ‘‘When I was away, those things just didn’t matter. I would sleep in graves and see death everywhere. It just
When I was away, those things just didn’t matter. I would sleep in graves and see death everywhere.’ BILL TAARE